Kyle and Lula Asplund Bates A Matinee

A Matinee is the first collaborative full-length from Kyle Bates and Lula Asplund. All at once intimate and expansive, dense and diaphanous, it is perhaps best thought of in terms of pilgrimage. In August, 2021 Bates and Asplund trekked to the Unknown, the famed destination church-turned-studio in Anacortes, WA co-owned by Phil Elverum (The Microphones / Mt. Eerie) and engineer Nich Wilbur. With Wilbur at the controls, Bates and Asplund executed A Matinee in one afternoon, using an array of instruments and devices ranging from a Casio SK-1 and a homemade Glockenspiel to computer programs and niche modular synthesizers like the Buchla Easel. Bates and Asplund first met as students at the Mills College Center for Contemporary Music (fka the San Francisco Tape Music Center) where they studied with experimental luminaries Pauline Oliveros, Laetitia Sonami, James Fei, Zeena Parkins, Meredith Monk, and Christopher Davidson. It is from this milieu that the duo proceeds, and fans of any of the